Speech at Alterre Day: Unsustainable! Towards Solutions…

On 21 January 2022, Alterre Bourgogne Franche-Comté organises its yearly conference Alterre Day on the theme:

Unsustainable! Which solutions for a better and desirable world?
VISIO CONFÉRENCE – 21 JANVIER 2022

Don’t miss Alterre day

Book your day (conference in French) to follow the speakers who will demonstrate that there is a need to enlighten public and private choices, to develop knowledge, to change our habits for a possible, viable, acceptable, desirable future.

The Red Team Analysis Society is honoured to contribute to this day by bringing the geopolitical angle (see detailed programme below), which is so often forgotten, but, thanks to Alterre BFC, not this time.

Practical details

The event will be broadcast live via YouTube and Facebook, and in replay. Three sequences on the programme from 9.15am to 12.30pm, then 2.30pm to 4pm.

➡️ Register (official registration with Alterre)
👉 Download the program (pdf) on Alterre website, or read below (incl. English version).

With the participation of

École des Mines de Saint-Étienne
The Red Team Analysis Society – RTAS on Facebook – RTAS on LinkedIn
@ObSoCo
@chaire comptabilité écologique
Agroparistech Foundation
Norsys
Vincent Liegey

Animé par Vincent Edin

Detailed program

9.15 – 10.45: Sustainability versus unsustainability, what are we talking about?

This first sequence questions the notion of “sustainability”, in its different meanings – ecological, economic, social, democratic – in order to better define the possible futures.

Dr Natacha Gondran is a professor of environmental assessment at the École des Mines de Saint-Étienne, where she is the “sustainable development and societal responsibility” delegate, and a member of the “Environment, city, society” joint research unit (University of Lyon – CNRS). With Aurélien Boutaud, she is the author of L’Empreinte écologique (La Découverte, 2009, republished in paperback in 2018) and Limites planétaires (La Découverte, 2020). She is a specialist in the “absolute evaluation of sustainability”. She will present the various biogeochemical processes that threaten the planet’s equilibrium and the limits that must not be exceeded without generating irreparable consequences (the “ecological tipping point”).

Dr Hélène Lavoix, doctor in political science from SOAS, University of London and holder of a master’s degree in international politics from the same university, founded and chairs The Red Team Analysis Society, a think tank, consultancy and training firm specialising in strategic foresight and international security. She is interested in all phenomena that create uncertainty and often threats at the political and geopolitical level. This includes issues destabilising the planet, from the Covid pandemic to climate change, from religious radicalisation to the rise of artificial intelligence. During her speech, she will explain the geopolitical issues related to the overcoming of planetary boundaries, from the competition for access to resources to the increasing instability of the world, not forgetting the emergence of new areas of geopolitical competition, as with the example of the deep sea.

11:00 – 12:30: What avenues for a desirable model?

Now that we have established the facts and the issues at stake, what avenues are being explored to invent the world of tomorrow, based on a sustainable and desirable model?

Véronique Varlin, Associate Director of the Observatoire Société et Consommation (ObSoCo) and member of the Scientific Council of the Ecole de la Banque Postale, has worked for twenty years in strategic consulting in communication agencies. Her talk will allow us to delve into the imaginations of the French and to explore their potential adherence to three utopian systems (ecological, security, techno-liberal) in order to try to draw a vision of a sustainable and desirable future.

Vincent Liegey, engineer, essayist and lecturer specialising in degrowth, is the coordinator of the social cooperative Cargonomia (distribution of local organic food products by cargo bikes) and is the author of Décroissance, fake or not (Tania Édition, 2021). After reminding us that infinite growth is nonsense in a finite world, he will invite us to consider a future world based on values different from those of today: open relocation, conviviality or autonomy. Only a paradigm shift will allow us to emancipate ourselves from the growth society, which is fundamentally unsustainable from an environmental point of view but, above all, increasingly morbid from a human point of view.

2.30 – 4 pm: Towards a sustainable economic system

The shift of humanity towards a sustainable and desirable model implies a profound reform of our economic functioning. But can the world of business operate ‘differently’? And if so, with what tools, based on what concepts, with what engine?

Aurélien Oosterlinck is coordinator of the Ecological Accounting Chair (AgroParisTech, Paris Dauphine and Reims Champagne-Ardenne universities). He is interested in the way in which accounting integrates ecological issues, even though accounting, which is the tool used to manage companies, has ignored this issue until now. However, the development of an “ecological accounting” is indeed a necessity to build a sustainable model.

Sylvain Breuzard, founder and president of Norsys, a company with a mission in the digital world, chairs the board of directors of Greenpeace and, in 2021, authored La permaentreprise: un modèle viable pour un futur vivable, inspired by permaculture (Eyrolles). The “perma-company” builds its raison d’être and its development on four inseparable ethical principles: caring for humans, preserving the planet, setting limits, sharing fairly. It is sober in its consumption of resources and seeks solutions in cooperation with other stakeholders. A demanding development model that leads the way.